12 July 2014

Chromecast sales equal Roku; Tablet Sales Decline

Roku and Chromecast go head-to-head in streaming race, Apple TV falling behind — Tech News and Analysis: "Google sold 3.8 million Chromecast streaming sticks last year, which makes the device about as popular as Roku’s streaming devices. Roku and Chromecast were the two most successful streaming devices sold in the U.S. in 2013, according to new data from Parks Associates, which puts Apple TV on third place. Google sold an estimated 3.8 million Chromecast streaming sticks after introducing the product in mid-2013, according to Parks, which also estimates that this about equals Roku’s sales throughout 2013. Apple is trailing, and sold just a bit more than two million devices in the U.S. last year, according to data shared by Parks...."Meanwhile Tablet sales decline, ramifications for Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface strategies?Tablet Shipments Decline For the First Time, NPD Says - Digits - WSJ: "... Global shipments of tablet computers, after years of robust growth, declined for the first time in the first quarter of this year, according to NPD DisplaySearch. The research firm also lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2014. The decline is in part because of weakening demand for smaller tablets – those between 7 inches and 7.9 inches – which accounted for 58% of global tablet shipments last year. In China and other emerging markets, competition from smartphones with screens larger than 5.5 inches is hurting demand for those tablets, NPD said...."Amazon's Next Steps Toward Cloud DominationInformationWeekThe headliner was clearly Amazon Zocalo, a file-sharing service, but the ... AmazonZocalo is a managed file-storage and sharing service aimed ... to fit somewhere between DropBox-like offerings and Microsoft SharePoint ... identity providers for logon, includingFacebook and Google, and Amazon says ...

Amazon Shelves French Book DiscountsWall Street JournalThe new law, which went into effect Thursday morning, essentially forbids online booksellers from applying government-regulated discounts to the ...

Microsoft gears up to open 'right to be forgotten' request formZDNetWith the ruling related to a complaint about results in Google, and it ... release the form because it needs to coordinate with Yahoo, whose search is powered by Bing. ...Microsoft is yet to reveal whether it will also follow Google's recent decision ... EPIC files complaint over Facebook emotion experiment.

Google launches $100M fund for European startupsSan Jose Mercury NewsMOUNTAIN VIEW -- Google has started a $100 million fund to invest in European ... The fund, which will be managed by Google Ventures, the company's ... trailing only Yahoo, which made 22 acquisitions, according to research and ...

Google's top lawyer says EU's 'right to be forgotten'...The VergeGoogle's chief legal officer has explained why the company disagrees with the EU's recent ruling that people have the "right to be forgotten" by its search engine. Writing in The Guardian, David Drummond explains the search giant's problems with the ...